


A Mortal Flaw, A Favourite Sin

by Reysagents



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo is a Mess, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reysagents/pseuds/Reysagents
Summary: Ben and Rey connect on the Falcon after an unwanted Force Bond, fluff and angst ensues.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	A Mortal Flaw, A Favourite Sin

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to everyone who continues to encourage me to write and post. I love you all!

Rey sat alone in the falcon. In her hands she held Luke’s saber. She turned the pieces over in her hands, feeling the ridges and the smoothe metal against her desert-calloused fingers. She let the cool metal seep into her skin, cooling her to the bone. She wished she’d never fallen into this trap; into this war. She and the lightsaber were more alike than she ever thought before. Once whole, now broken. All because of a strange pull between her and Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo. 

She sighed and dropped the saber onto the ground. She couldn't look at it anymore, it hurt too much. He hurt too much. Everything hurt far too much. She pulled up the sleeve of her tunic and examined her shoulder. It was a bit swollen and red with dried blood. It ached deeply. She winced at the sight of the inflamed scratches etched deep into her skin. In her mind she played the scene over and over, the guard charging after her, the burning pain of the electric wound, the look on Ben’s face when it had happened. She covered the wound once more, the burning ache in her shoulder was slowly beginning to fade with time, but the one in her heart was still very prevalent. Everything was just too much. She dropped her head into her hands and let her shoulders heave, finally allowing herself an emotional release. Hot tears raced down her cheeks faster than she could wipe them away. Her face grew hot as she shook silently. How did she fall into this? After all she was just a scavenger, but now she had no choice but to be more. It was simply overwhelming. She sobbed into her hands, her teardrops making a soft pitter-patter as they fell in between the metal grates on the floor of the falcon. 

Rey never intended to be a hero. She never intended to have an undeniable urge to fight the dark; to save Ben Solo. All she wanted was a family and after endlessly searching for one in the Resistance, in Han Solo, and foolishly, blindly, in Ben, she always somehow came up empty. Time after time she came up empty. She sniffled and wiped her cheeks with the hem of her tunic. She tried to breathe but choked on tears. Every effort she made just came out shaky and she collapsed into despair once again. She was tired of being hurt. Tired of feeling so suffocatingly alone. But now she sat alone again, in the ship that had once belonged to the father of Ben Solo, and for some reason, she almost wished he was here with her. And although she knew she shouldn’t, she sometimes allowed herself to remember the look on his face and the sound of his voice from that night when he told her she wasn’t alone; desperately clawing for the sense of belonging she had felt when he was near, she had tried and failed for weeks after the battle of Crait to understand the bond they had. Their force-connection was strange, but not unwelcome. She tried to work through her feelings on the matter but she always came up short. Never quite reaching the conclusion she wanted. She wanted to be angry; wanted to be furious, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel that way. It was infuriating.

After she cut him off during their escape on Crait, she hadn't reached out again and neither had he. She had a feeling she knew why. It hurt too much, and that was okay. Occasionally she would feel a pull. A tug of sorts on her heartstrings telling her that perhaps he wanted in, but she decided that for now their time was better spent apart. Not as much for her sake, but for his. She wanted nothing more than to have the presence of someone who understood, someone who listened. Her heart ached for the feeling of how it had felt to be reassured, to be heard, to be, in a sense; wanted. She had never been wanted before and the feeling was overwhelming and new. Their stolen moments felt like a drug, but even she knew that addiction always ended in pain, so she tried her hardest to stay away. Everytime the urge for connection came over her, she quickly dismissed it for the protection of both their hearts. She tried to convince herself that none of it had ever really happened. Their hand touch, their connection; it was almost all too strange to be real. But the strangest thing about it was the reassurance she felt when she was with him.

Rey desperately wanted to believe that all the things he told her were true. She wanted to believe that she wasn’t alone, she really did, but it simply wasn’t reasonable. Because here she sat, alone once again. At least she thought she was alone before she felt it. Another tug. It sent a shiver up her spine. She felt him. Felt his presence behind her. She didn’t want to look, but this was bound to happen. She wanted to shut him out again. That was what they both needed. But was it really? Her brain was running a mile a minute. So before her head could make a decision, her heart took over. Still in a fit of hot tears, both from emotional and physical pain, she threw down her mental walls almost as quickly as she had built them up and turned around.

And there he was.

He just stared. She stared back. 

No one dared speak. The crushing weight of the silence was heavy on both of their shoulders as they took in the strange sight of one another. They would never get used to the others’ strong presence. His eyes flicked over her, making their way from her Jakku rags to her tear stained face. His eyes softened the slightest bit. 

“You’ve been crying,” he whispered.

“Shut up,” she said. She watched his face fall as the words visibly stung. She thought she was strong enough to do this. She wasn’t. But there was no backing out now. She wanted nothing more than to be near him, but her heart was so fragile. He drew closer to her. She recoiled and took a step back, uncertain of his intentions. Was he the same man from that night on Ahch-To, or was he the one that ordered the ultimate destruction of her and all her friends? She wasn’t sure. She wore her internal conflict on her face. She gritted her teeth and wiped the remaining traces of tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. He advanced towards her again.

“Stay away!” she growled, backing up once more. Suddenly and without warning a white hot pain raced through her arm. Her wounded shoulder had run up against a loose piece of metal on one of the walls of the Falcon. She cried out, clutching her wound, blood seeping out from in between her fingers where the deep cuts had not yet begun to heal. She looked up at him, her mouth gaping open. He just stared at her, afraid to come any closer. She needed the spare med pack, but the only way to get that was to go through Ben. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility of needing to escape either, but if she did, she had nowhere to go. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall, slowly lowering herself to the floor, clutching her arm and trying to control her breathing. Ben looked at her, visibly worried. He didn’t dare go to her out of fear of being chastised again, so he just whispered her name. 

“Rey?”

“What,” she panted. “Can’t you see I’m busy.” He frowned. This was no time for joking around. 

“Rey if you don’t get that bandaged you’re going to bleed out on the floor of this ship.”

“So what if you care,” she snarled back. She hated how harsh she sounded, but her attitude was most likely a combination of the pain and his conflicting presence, so she dismissed it. 

“As much as you probably hate me, hate this connection, whatever it is, I truly don’t want you to bleed out,” he paused. “I know you don’t want me to be here as much as I would like you to, but could you please just let me help you?”

Her features softened the slightest bit. Did he really think she hated him? As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Especially not after he was offering to help her. So for the time being, she decided to throw her inhibitions out the window and rely on trust, if only for a moment. 

Trust goes both ways.

“Yes,” she whispered, looking everywhere but his eyes. “Please help me.” 

After being given permission, he quickly walked over to her and dropped to his knees. He began to unwrap her arm protectors, but stopped short.

“May I?” he asked.

She just nodded. With that, he continued the unwrapping. His eyes roamed over her arm as he pulled the wraps away from her skin. Where they had been covered, her arms were pale and soft, untouched by the desert sun. She watched him watch her, feeling unreasonably self-conscious the whole time. But her nervousness quickly melted to relief when she felt the cool air touch her skin. She hadn’t unwrapped her arms in weeks and the feeling of her bare arm against the air felt wonderful. She almost allowed herself to smile. Ben finished unwrapping her arm and laid the blood-soaked wraps to the side. He crossed the ship to retrieve the med pack then returned to her side without saying a word. 

“Rey I’m going to need you to take your hand off your shoulder, okay,” he said.

“Alright,” she whispered. 

Slowly and carefully she removed her fingers one by one from her wound. To her surprise, the bleeding had barely slowed. Her arm and hand were stained with red and she looked up at him. He gave her a reassuring smile and went to work examining her wound. 

“It’s a pretty deep cut and you opened it up pretty bad, but it’s not something some tight bandages can’t fix,” he concluded. He reached into the kit and pulled out a roll of white gauze. Rey arched an eyebrow. There was no telling how old those bandages were. He began to unwrap the white material. She gasped when he took a hold of her forearm. He quickly let go.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Just please hurry, it really hurts.”

He busied himself with his work once again. His fingers ghosted over her skin and she couldn’t help but shiver at the touch of his bare hands as he began to wrap her wound. He pulled tight around her cut and she groaned. It hurt her. He hated listening to her in pain, so he tried to block out as much of the groaning and cursing as he could while he pulled the bandages taut against her skin. He finished quickly and leaned up against the wall beside her. They sat in silence, both bloody and confused before Rey spoke. 

“Ben,” she choked out. He looked over at her. “Thank you.” 

His lips twitched upward in what was almost a smile. “It was no trouble at all.”

They sat in strangling silence a little while longer. Rey sat still, deep in thought. She thought about what he’d said earlier and it troubled her. He really thought she hated him, yet he still helped her. What did that say about him? More importantly, what did that say about her? She wanted to believe he was good- that there was still light in him. She knew there was a glimmer somewhere. She saw that now, in this moment. She thought once more about how he’d listened to her, comforted her, protected her, and helped her, and she couldn’t help but feel guilty. He’d been trying to get to her this whole time. He craved the light just like she did, and she kept him out. She thought she was doing what was best for her, without realizing what it had done to him. 

Rey watched Ben. His eyes were closed. He looked almost peaceful, resting against the wall, his chest rising and falling in time. He was tired. His clothes hung loosely around his shoulders and dark circles were forming under his eyes from lack of sleep and stress. As she watched him, he wasn’t the Supreme Leader or Kylo Ren. He was Ben Solo and he was in the ship he grew up in, maybe for the first time in forever. She could feel that he was just as lonely as she was. He longed for a life he never got to have. She didn’t hate him. She couldn’t. As much as she wanted to, she knew she never could bring herself too. She knew that much.

“Do you really believe I hate you?” she muttered.

His eyes opened and found hers. 

“I just assumed-”

“Well I don’t,” she finished. He sat up straighter and stared at her, a funny look on his face. Was it confusion, hope, disappointment? She didn’t know. All she knew was him. “I know you think I hate you, and I have no reason not to, but I don’t,” she said. “That night on Ahch-To you made me feel something I’d never felt before and I’ve been struggling with it ever since.” 

He looked at her. “What exactly did you feel?”

“Connection. Understanding. I felt wanted.” she looked back at him, her eyes shining with tears. “And maybe that’s not what happened. Maybe I’ve just created this whole thing in my head. Perhaps this connection is messing with me, making me think things that aren’t true, but I truly felt that for once someone came back for me. You listened. You sat there and listened and told me I wasn’t alone and yes, I felt wanted.”

His eyes were glassy as he spoke. “So did I.” 

It was in that very moment that Rey realized how broken Ben Solo truly was. He was just like her. Abandoned at a young age. Sent away. Left alone. Abused by everyone he’d ever trusted. He needed to be comforted and understood as much as she did. He didn’t want to be alone, either. He also wished to be wanted. The only difference between them was that he’d fallen to the dark and she’d risen to the light. But there was dark and light in both of them now. It grew every day. They were equals and they knew it. They were two sides of the same coin.

In a moment of want- no, in a moment of need- Rey found herself stretching her hand out once again. She turned her hand, palm facing up towards him. He hesitated at first, but his fingers soon found hers. They held onto each other like they were the only two people left in the galaxy. They might as well have been.Their hands were both freezing. They were stiff and still. The last time they touched like this they were interrupted by Luke. Neither one of them had ever experienced the receiving end of affection before and it was strange. Their shoulders touched now, too. The closeness was foreign, but not unwelcome. They ached to be truly connected, but the sting of the lightyears that separated them reminded them that they were not.

Rey was startled out of her thoughts by Ben rubbing gentle circles on the top of her hand with his thumb. She looked down at their intertwined fingers and wondered if maybe in another time, in another life, this could ever work. 

He wondered the same thing. She turned to him.

“Ben?” 

“Yes?”

“Please don’t leave.”

He wasn’t going to. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Not when everything was so...right. For the first time in a long time, he felt peace come over him along with Rey’s head on his shoulder. He closed his eyes and relaxed into her touch, letting himself feel the warmth of her skin across millions of miles. He figured it may as well have been a miracle. Ben rested his chin on the top of her head, sighing deeply. He closed his eyes and wondered if it was possible to get drunk off a feeling, or off a person. He only stirred when her voice drew him out of his trance.

“I’m sorry,” Rey said. “For everything.” She lifted her head off his shoulder. The sudden absence of her made him cold. “I shouldn’t have called you a monster. A creature in a mask. I should have listened and understood. And most of all-” she reached up to trace his scar with the tips of her fingers. “I’m sorry for this.” He watched her face fall. Guilt had eaten her alive. For weeks it had haunted her consciousness, coming for her in the night. He could tell. Rey’s fingers fell back into her lap and she looked down. “I felt a pull to the dark once, and I didn’t stop it. It called me. It’s not that I couldn’t stop it, I just didn’t want to. It overtook me and I let it and now I’m not sure what to do. I have darkness inside me and I am afraid. I hear I’ve done horrible things.”

“And I haven’t?” Ben inquired. “Rey, I’ve done horrible, terrible things and I deserve nothing more than for you to strike me down dead, but you haven’t because you are compassionate and loving and kind. You are more light that I or anyone else could ever hope to be and you are good. You saw the light in me when no one else did and day after day, mistake after mistake, you still continue to. None of what has happened is your fault. You were torn and misled and confused just as I was. As I am. And I know I still have a lot to work on, and maybe we’ll never get it right. Maybe I’ll never get it right. But we still have to try.” He smiled a tiny bit. “And the scar? It’s nothing.” She smiled into her lap. “And I know that as soon as this is over we’ll still be on two different sides of the war, parts of two different worlds, but maybe someday we’ll find the balance.”

This made Rey cry even harder than she had earlier. Everything was happening all at once. She didn’t think she deserved forgiveness or kindness or love, but here it was, being offered to her for free by the Supreme Leader of the First Order; by Ben Solo. She sobbed into her hands. She didn’t know what to do. Her heart ached. From happiness or sadness she couldn’t decide. That was when Ben gently placed his hand on the side of her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. He ran a thumb over her cheek, catching a stray tear. Snoke was right. His compassion for her was his undoing. It outweighed all else. 

She was his mortal flaw. 

His favourite sin. 

Her lashes were wet and her face was red, but she was still as beautiful as ever. He stared at her and her lip twitched into a sort of smile. He looked down at her lips and then back at her, a question in his eyes.

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered.

“We can’t,” he replied. “But we want to.”

“Yes. We do.”

At that, Ben closed his eyes and leaned in, his hand still on her jaw. His lips barely ghosted over hers, afraid he had made a mistake. It was Rey who finally sealed the tear stained kiss. She closed her eyes, pressing her mouth to his with a gentle pressure. It was different and new, but not in a bad way. She moved her hand from her lap to the nape of his neck as he found her side, bringing her closer. He kissed her again, this time more sure than ever before, all while taking in the intoxicatingly sweet smell of ocean spray and desert sun. His lips fitted to hers and she smiled against him. “She was radiant in every way,” He thought. She moved her lips against his with an unmistakable want. 

For the first time in forever, Rey finally felt awake. With him, there was no sense of abandonment, no threat of loss, no waiting for someone who would never come back. Just compassion and hope and perhaps somewhere there was light. The ever-present ache in her chest was finally gone, if only for a moment. Ben fell into her touch. She spoke like the moon, walked like the breeze, fought like the ocean, and kissed like the sun that she was. He broke the kiss only to continue it across her cheeks, her nose, her jaw, her hair, her everywhere. He had never truly known what love was, but he was sure he knew now. 

Love was selfless and strong, just like her. Courageous in every sense of the word. It was perfect and so was she. He rested his forehead against hers and breathed heavily but happily, worn out from the shared moment. Ben met her eyes and simply held her face in his hands, not yet strong enough to bear the weight of letting her go. They both breathed together in time, knowing that from here on out everything would be harder. Life, love, war.

Everything would be harder. The weight was back. Rey stroked a finger over his cheek again, her eyes glassy. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered. “And this isn’t the end.”

“What if it is?” he worried back.

“It’s not. And do you know how I know?” she asked. “I know because beginnings and endings can’t both happen at once.” He searched her eyes and her soul. “Our hearts are both filled to the brim with light and dark and this, right now, is the struggle between them.” She smiled and laced her fingers with his.”Maybe one day we’ll talk about each other in the past tense, but it’s not today. It might be tomorrow and it might be years from now, but it isn’t today. I promise it isn’t today. I know it hurts,” she said, choking on a sob. “I know it’s not easy, but the truth is, nothing ever was. Life is tough but so are we.”

He wiped his tears and his lips found hers again. Their souls; light and dark, melding together.

It was true; everything was easier when he was darkness and she was light. They were on opposite sides of an intergalactic war. Things would always be hard and things would always hurt. But for all their downfalls, for all their faults and selfish desires, they could not resist the temptation of being known, of being loved, of being grey.


End file.
